Chapter 2

July 15, 1990

Coralis and Nadilla were excited. They were getting ready to go shopping for their school supplies. The previous month, they had received by mail the list of what they would need for school. The list wasn’t long, but there were so many books listed on it, that they were hoping that none of them were heavy: they had no one to help carry them to school or across the mall.

As promised, Vallia met with them a few times during the year. Coralis wasn’t sure if that really helped, because she simply ignored the other kids to avoid getting into conflicts. The trial and the weeks prior to it were a little more challenging, but Roberto gave her something to suppress her emotions during that month: it wasn’t healthy, but they couldn’t risk any accident at the courthouse or with the authorities. He made sure that Vallia met with Coralis when the potion wore off.

Ms. Wagner wasn’t too keen about letting a 10-year-old girl go shopping alone with a 9-year-old, but Roberto had filed the correct paperwork to grant them permission to be out for the day, and he made sure that a driver would pick them up and drive them back. He also instructed the girls on what to do when they get there. None of them were humans, so they didn’t need someone to accompany them there, even if they had been raised among humans.

None of them were talking while they waited for the driver. They both had a big smile plastered on their face, but they didn’t want to risk anyone overhearing their conversation. Roberto said that the driver would be an elemental, so they figured it was best to wait until they were in the car.

A little bit before 10:00, their ride arrived and they quickly rushed out of the building and into the car.

“FINALLY!” said Nadilla. “I’m so excited! For almost an entire year, we kept hearing about this other world, now we will get to actually see it!”

“Yeah, it’s about time. I wonder what it will feel like, if I will be able to sense everyone’s aura, or energy. I’m still confused about all this.”

“Me too, but we will learn. We will be fine,” said Nadilla. “But first, remember what Roberto said: we need to go see our banker to access our money and accounts.”

“Yes, that’s true,” said Coralis, as she started thinking about something else. “He also said that my parents had storage units in London and in Alexandria, but that he’s not the one who could tell me how to get the keys to access them.”

“I’m also supposed to have one somewhere, in a town called Alma. I don’t even know where that is. Hopefully the banker can tell us more about it. I think it is strange that Roberto couldn’t give us the keys if he was in charge of our parents’ will,” mused Nadilla.

“Everything is strange. All we know about our parents is that they worked for bad people, got killed because of it and left us everything they had. But remember, Nad, I will be going to the same school they went, so I’ll find out more. Maybe the banker knows about the storage units, but if not, someone at school probably will know something.”

“Oh yeah, true! We’re also supposed to meet with our elemental guardians next week. Maybe they know something, but still, I’m sure Roberto and Vallia know more than what they are telling us. They didn’t tell us which school your dad went to, maybe he went to mine.”

Coralis looked at her cousin, deep in thought. She didn’t realize the car had stopped in the middle of an alley.

“There you are girls,” said the driver. “You see that metal door there, without a handle? Knock on it 4 times, and it will open. My advice, both of you do it at the same time, so that it can register your essence. That way, next time you come here, you won’t even have to knock.”

“Hmm thanks!” said Coralis. “How did you know that it is our first time coming here?”

“I know where I picked you up. Two young elemental children in an orphanage type of place, with a pick-up order coming from the CMMA? You might be full blooded mages, but there is no way you came here before… unless you’re some type of seer and somehow saw that place in a dream.”

Coralis and Nadilla looked at each other. Seer. They both wondered what else was real.

“I recognize that look on your face,” continued the driver. “I will pick you up here in exactly 6 hours. I understand that our world might be overwhelming for you, as you were obviously raised in a world where mages and elves aren’t real. If you have questions for me, I will gladly answer them on the way back to your place of residence.”

“You’re an elf?” said Coralis and Nadilla at the same time.

“Yes, I am, young ladies.”

“Oh!” said Nadilla while glancing at Coralis. “Then sure, we probably will have questions. I thought you were also an elemental mage like us… but with a slightly blueish skin.”

“Nope! I’m an elemental, yes, but elemental elf. You can call me Petaan. I’m surprised you can see through my glamor; younglings your age shouldn’t be able to see my true skin colour. That being said, I will not keep you here any longer. Go have fun, I will see you later!”

“See you later!” said Coralis.

The girls got out of the car and following the driver instructions, they entered the elemental mall.

They looked around in awe. They realized that they probably looked like zombies, looking up and everywhere without paying attention to where they were going. Everything was so colourful, with a lot of glitters floating in the seemingly never-ending ceiling. A few minutes later, Nadilla accidently bumped into a shopper and released a small scream. Coralis abruptly stopped walking to see what was going on, and felt her jaw dropping when her eyes landed on a 4-meter-tall man with greyish skin.

“Sorry… sir…” said Nadilla. She didn’t know if she should be afraid or not, and wished she could be invisible at this moment. “First time here, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”

The troll looked down at her, visibly annoyed, but said nothing. He just went around her and walked away.

“Oof, I wonder what that was. We need to remember what he looked like so we can ask Petaan about it,” said Coralis. “Anyway, let’s find the banker first, then we can figure out where should we go next. Plus, I am hungry, so I also want to get something to eat once we have our money. We have 6 hours, let’s make the best of it!”

It didn’t take long for them to find where their parents bank was located. The employee told them that they needed an appointment to see a banker. The girls told him that they have been specifically instructed to come here first, so they assumed that it meant they already had an appointment. The employee, a short pale-skin fay, checked his records again.

“Oh! Yes, I see your names now. My apologies, I usually don’t see clients that young and it is clearly your first time here,” said the employee. “Hmm, both of you are here for an official transfer of assets to heirs, but I see you have different last names… were you supposed to be seen together or separately?”

“I don’t know, but we’re cousins. It’s fine either way,” said Coralis.

Just like the employee, the banker was also a short pale-skin fay. It was fairly common for fay families to run financial establishments.

The banker explained the extent of their respective family assets. Coralis’ mother and Nadilla’s father were brother and sister, but they had 6 other siblings. Roberto had already told them that there was no family estate listed in their wills, but he didn’t know about the specifics of their assets. All he knew, was that it was of a substantial value. He wasn’t lying when he claimed that the girls wouldn’t have to worry about anything financially. Between investments and savings, both had for over $2M at their disposal.

They took nearly an hour to discuss how they wanted to use the funds. The girls didn’t know anything about economy or how expensive things were in their new world. They agreed to keep $200,000 each as pocket money for now and reinvest the rest in short and long term investments. The banker told Coralis that her family also had a safe in one of their London branches, so she would have to travel there to retrieve its contents. He couldn’t tell her what was in it. As for Nadilla, she would need to go to their Alma’s branch for her parents safe.

Neither of them had any idea of what their family could possibly have put in a safe located in a bank, but they hoped that their storage keys were there. They knew their family was involved with the wrong type of people and that’s what got them killed. They were wondering if they would also find any kind of cursed objects in there, or gold bars.

They went from shop to shop and tried to taste all the food they saw. They didn’t want to keep track of the time, but they knew they had to. They were glad the trial was over, but they lost their case, so the last thing they wanted was to raise any type of attention from their home administrators. They just wanted to blend in so well in their current home, that nobody knew they were there. Ten minutes before they had to be picked up, they were already outside, waiting for their ride.

“That was fun,” started Nadilla. “We’ll have to do this again. I don’t know how, because we will not go to the same school… but we will have to find a way.”

“Yeah, for sure! Next summer?”

As they were chatting, a bright yellow car pulled over close to where they stood. The driver rolled down the passenger side window.

“Are you coming in?”

The girls looked at each other. It was Petaan, but in a different car, so they climbed in.

“Hello again, sir,” said Coralis. “Hmm where do we put all the stuff we bought?”

“Please call me Petaan. I believe I will also be picking you up to drive you to the airport,” he said while getting out of the car. He went to the trunk, opened it, and started to place all of their purchases in there. “Did you manage to find everything?”

“Yes, I think we did”, said Coralis. “We got what was on the list, both the mandatory and the optional stuff, but we don’t know if there are other stuff that other elemental our age usually bring to school.”

On the drive back, the girls remembered to ask about the very tall grey-skin creature they ran into when they arrived and were amazed to hear it was a troll. They were about to start questioning about elves when Petaan pulled by their home.

“Well, that was a pleasure to meet you both,” said Petaan, looking at them. “I’ll see you both in a month to drive you to the airport. I was told that I was to pick up Nadilla on August 21st, and Coralis on August 26th.”

He then exited the car, and went to the back of it to empty the trunk. The girls didn’t know how they were going to carry all of it to their room. There were shopping carts at their disposal when they were at the mall. Petaan noticed their thinking expressions as he was about to pick up the first bag. The girls had bought a few suitcases, but they didn’t put anything in them.

“Oh! Yeah, I guess it will be tricky for you to bring all of this stuff inside without raising any attention.” He looked around to make sure no one was watching from any direction, closed the trunk, waited a minute with his eyes shut, and opened the trunk back. He pulled out of it two medium sized brown bags. “There you go little ladies, everything you bought is within these two bags.”

The girls were amazed. They had no idea how Petaan did that, but they hoped that they would learn how at school. They thanked him, then turned around and went inside their home.

The following week, just like Roberto and Vallia told them, they met with their respective appointed guardian. Ludovic Bramman was going to watch over Nadilla when at school. He was a retired janitor. In the elemental world, a janitor does more than just cleaning up places: they are the first ones on the field to detect suspicious activities. Ms. Martha was going to look for Coralis. She was a potion teacher at the school she was going to attend, in Scotland.